Afterwards, which is when I really began thinking about it, what was most striking was not that I had witnessed the death of a large animal, but that I had never seen such a thing before. I eat an awful lot of meat. I could not even begin to calculate the number of chickens, ducks, pigs, cows and the rest who have died simply to feed my appetites. But, jokes about my capacious appetite aside, we can agree that it falls under the heading 'lots'. And yet, not once had I actually been there for the moment of slaughter.

Well now I've done it and recorded the results in this piece about following an animal all the way from being 'on the hoof' to the butcher's slab (or almost; the animal I chose for slaughter had to hang for four weeks so the one I actually butchered was an equivalent). Nothing that happened is at all unusual. Millions of animals are killed to feed us every year and, as I say, the Limousin cow I picked out was going to be slaughtered whatever I did. It just might not have been so soon. The only thing that made the whole event remarkable is that I was there, which is solipsism run riot of course. If a cow dies in an abattoir and no journalist is there to see it killed, how do we know it happened? Bloody easy, mate: by the shrink wrapped steaks in the supermarket.

In writing about the experience I concluded the best approach was simply to describe what happened. Death is a drama all its own and need not be attended by histrionics. Still I suspect I'm going to get some in the comments section below this piece. Perhaps the fact that I was not horrified by what I saw means I am lacking empathetic skills; that I am, emotionally speaking, a plank of wood. Unsurprisingly I don't think so. Cruel or inhumane treatment is obviously unacceptable. Any animal deserves as pain- and stress-free a death as possible. But when, as here, it's done as professionally and quickly as this was, I can't claim to be overwhelmed by a sense of grief and self-disgust when I feel none. I did not hesitate about eating an equivalent steak a few hours later.

But it does raise a few interesting questions which deserve to be answered here. I asked Christine Thompson, who with her husband David had raised this herd, whether everybody should be forced to make the connection between animal and carcass. No, she said, because it might put people off eating meat and that was not in their commercial interests. Fair enough.

So then, do you think if you had to witness the death of an animal it would put you off meat eating? More to the point, do you think anybody who chooses to eat animals should be forced, as I have done, to witness what goes on in a slaughterhouse? And if you could avoid getting too shouty on the issues we'd appreciate it. Sensible measured debate please. A lot of blood has already been spilt in the researching of this piece. We probably don't need any more.